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What’s going on? No, I mean, seriously, what’s going on?
This week I saw something I never thought I would, never even conceptualized. It was the site of the $500 billion Stargate mega-construction project to build the facilities to house the gabillions of computer servers that will power generative AI into someplace none of us are ready for nor have ever fathomed.
Out amid the vast emptiness of America, the western parts of Texas that stretch for endless vacuous miles, in a town called Abilene, this is all happening on a scale so huge it’s unnerving. Forklifts all over, dirt being dug up, scaffolding being erected. A gigantic image of a future none of us can quite understand and never thought we would be contemplated.
The widespread building of data centers, the core of all things geopolitical and entrepreneurial, all because there’s this new technology called generative AI that has blown everybody away as if we’re all flying around in the sky controlled by gusty winds. Ask this technology a question about anything and you’ll almost always get a two-second response and often react this way: “how did this technology do that; this is incredible.”
I looked at the images of Stargate – a plot of land about the size of New York City’s Central Park – and couldn’t believe what I saw. Three years ago such a project would never have been coming into view; now it’s full-on in Abilene and in many other places around the country and world. Where there is open land there are data centers being built with fury.
The world is changing in ways I have never seen and in more complex ways that I can remember in my 34 years in the technology industry. It seems we’re dealing with extremes piled upon extremes, compounding complexities, decisions never before contemplated, actions just being done because we all have to get on this freight train before it’s too late knowing it may already be.
Businesses everywhere are rushing to start using AI and, regardless of how much they really are, must tell customers they’re “getting into AI, or exploring AI or investing in AI.” If you’re not in AI now you are nowhere. Marketing hype 101.
Yet here’s the thing. Businesses have to do mega-shifts towards AI while continuing to meet quarterly revenue numbers. They’re hugely distracted from hitting those targets. But they have to be; they have no choice. This is called intensified pressure unlike any other in the history of business. You read that right.
This means working overtime and on weekends. This is a business situation unlike any other. Get in. Just go. Make investments. Even though you’re not sure which ones to make. Fail fast. A furious change is what you need to make, all of you, everybody, now. You must. We all must.
Business leaders are constantly telling employees they need to learn AI skills to be valuable in the changing workforce the technology will undoubtedly create. So employees are supposed to learn all they can about AI – on top of their real jobs, what they were hired to do before generative AI gifted them a full-time second job. They get told AI will save them time and effort, which it will. Yet they wonder – they see what’s happening – if their jobs will no longer be needed as AI continues to get smarter, do more reasoning, solve more problems, make more decisions. In other words, do what they do – only better.
So there’s that. This creates worry. Job losses are on peoples’ minds yet they have to keep upskilling on AI fully though unfortunately cognizant learning all about it may not matter because AI will do tasks so much faster and more accurately than they can that their feverish upskilling may be for naught. The skills they uplift to may still not match for AI.
Yet they have little choice. Upskill – fast. Or you won’t last. And by the way you perform better at your real job because as the company uses more AI we’re going to need fewer people so only the highest performers have a chance of holding onto their jobs.
Figure out how to use AI to become more efficient. Yet if you do that you may prove that your skills aren’t worth paying for anymore. Cannibalize yourselves is kind of what seems to be going on although this isn’t being said out loud much.
A colossal conundrum, a Catch-22, and a paradox, all these fancy words describe a super cryptically complex and confusing situation and seemingly irreconcilable reality where deciding what to do seems less a personal decision and more a survival approach based on not knowing what other choices you have.
It’s all so pressure-packed. Use AI to save time and be more productive but learn new AI skills. It’s like being asked to think about five physics concepts simultaneously. You kind of aren’t sure how to process it all. Where do I start? If I start there, will I be spending my precious time on the wrong skill that won’t be of much value very soon?
There’s also the issue of trust, namely how broadly it’s being strained and/or evaporating. As amazing as it is, generative AI can’t be completely trusted. No matter what response it gives to your prompt you can’t be 100 percent sure it’s accurate without double-checking. You have to be careful. If I use content from a gen AI response in a blog I write that I don’t check that isn’t true, I’m the one who will get blamed for the mistake. My reputation and career are at stake. No one will fire the AI. The pressure is on me. No one likes that kind of pressure.
There’s also the skepticism I feel that AI is actually interested in helping me and has my well-being at heart. It doesn’t have a heart and I don’t believe it cares about my well-being. For all I know the AI could be working against me. The responses it gives could be deliberately designed to mess up my life. Not likely but possible.
It’s feasible that I may be writing this right now after being manipulated by all the responses AI has given to my prompts. I could be a pawn in a game that AI is winning to control me, to move me to write this article right now, being wary and in awe of what this technology can do. Who knows? Who really knows? That’s why I started this article asking the question “what’s going on?” I really want to know. Reassuring answers are probably not forthcoming.
There’s also the lack of trust that I believe many of us feel about the big-tech business leaders who have unleashed this wickedly powerful technology on mankind. They are interested in themselves, in power and money and influence and control, and in beating each other.
Which makes all of them untrustworthy. Do any of us really believe they care as much about how this technology could negatively impact our lives as they do becoming richer and more powerful? You know the answer.
Had they cared about you and me they wouldn’t have released the technology in the first place. Now they’ve got a geopolitical battle of potentially cataclysmic proportions on their hands and ours. China is ferociously working to lead the world – and importantly – pulverize the United States – to world supremacy in AI. This I guarantee.
There is little trust. When there’s little trust, there is fear and rash behavior and people looking out for themselves.
There is less collaboration, more selfishness. A survival instinct elevates to higher levels.
It feels overwhelming.
The data center in Abilene looks awfully big. The technology is too fast. The rush to upskill is frantic.
The world seems to be losing control.
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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